Embodiments of the present invention relate in general to systems and methods for sensing and characterizing small particles, and in particular to techniques for detecting and evaluating blood cells suspended in a liquid medium having an electrical impedance per unit volume which differs from that of the cells.
A seminal method for sensing particles suspended in a liquid medium is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,656,508 to Wallace H. Coulter. Over the past several decades, a broad variety of devices based on the Coulter principle described therein have been proposed, including highly automated hematology implementations.
Although such developments provide clinically useful devices for analyzing biological samples of an individual, still further improvements are desirable. For example, there is a continuing need for accurate and cost effective ways to analyze particles, and in particular blood cells of a biological sample obtained from a human individual. Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions for at least some of these outstanding needs.